Drones have been a small staple in our existence for the past few years. What started out as an expensive (depending on your perspective) toy for the rich and shameless, can now be had by anyone with $20 in the bank and a desire to drive household pets absolutely crazy. But, the definition of “drone” is set to change in the future with the introduction of the StreetDrone One. SteetDrone is an organization led by Mike Potts and Mark Preston, the latter of which has done extensive work in Formula E and has even worked with McLaren. These two men look to “accelerate and democratize the development of self-driving, electric vehicles.”

Self-driving cars are coming, no doubt, but the problem with autonomoustechnology and even electric cars is that development and testing are expensive – leaving development and testing of these new technologies in the hands of the large, wealthy automakers. But, that’s not the way dreams come true, is it? Hell, brands like Apple, HP, and even Google all started in someone’s garage, but with the insane cost of development and testing, there’s no chance a “little guy” could ever develop a true autonomous system without an excessive amount of money. StreetDrone One looks to change all of that by providing an affordable test bed that allows you to implement your own self-driving software and test it in the real world. Ultimately, it will bring autonomous development to the masses instead of leaving it in the hands of large automakers.

What we’re talking about here is a car, based on the Renault Twizy, that comes ready for programming so coders like you can see just how well your autonomous programming works without relying on computer simulation.